Mark Summerlin
Appearances
Planet Money
Tariffs: What are they good for?
For President Trump, a... Tariff is just a form of power. So with, you know, with Colombia, he wanted them to take back certain people and he wasn't getting the answer that he wanted. And so he just threatened 25% tariffs.
Planet Money
Tariffs: What are they good for?
So that was a case where, for some of us, it might be uncomfortable seeing it. Different people have different philosophies on whether big countries should be bullying little countries or not. But in that case, he got what he wanted. It was short-lived. From a U.S. perspective, there wasn't really any damage done.
Planet Money
Tariffs: What are they good for?
Yeah, as leverage. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. That's it. We're using our power.
Planet Money
Tariffs: What are they good for?
There's been a distinct drift in the academic literature that every year new stuff comes out that the China shock was worse and worse than we thought.
Planet Money
Tariffs: What are they good for?
We just basically added suddenly like a billion people to the global workforce. And it really gutted a lot of things. And we were too slow to realize it.
Planet Money
Tariffs: What are they good for?
The way that the Trump administration looks at it, especially with something like China, is no, it's a bad deal. And China gets jobs and we get like bad Chinese goods that last for a year and then we throw them out. And so you can see why people would say, you know, maybe we would prefer to have jobs and be building assets rather than getting all this excess consumption.